Skywriting by Word of Mouth

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Skywriting by Word of Mouth is the third, and last, book written by John Lennon. Subtitled "and Other Writings Including the Ballad of John and Yoko", it was published posthumously in 1986 and included an afterword by his widow, Yoko Ono. Like his other works, it contains miscellaneous writings and cartoons.

The book includes Lennon's autobiography (titled "The Ballad of John and Yoko", also the title of a song), in which he talks about the Beatles' break-up ("I started the band. I disbanded it.") and says that he has no hard feelings against his former bandmates: "Paul, George, and It's Only Ringo. I bear them no ill will." However, he also referred to them as "avant-garde revolutionary thinkers" a statement which could be interpreted as sarcastic in intent and declared "In retrospect, the Beatles were no more an important part of my life than any other (and less than some)."

Lennon mentioned the manuscript in a 1980 Playboy interview: "At one point [during his five-year "retirement" from music]... I wrote about two hundred pages of mad stuff." The manuscript was stolen from the Lennons' apartment in 1982, and later recovered in 1986, when Ono had it published.